


Beyond the Veil

by Miraculous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Gen, Mystery, Veil of Death (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 19:02:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17473226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miraculous/pseuds/Miraculous
Summary: The living have no comprehension of what it means to be dead.Harry’s encounter with the Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries goes slightly differently....





	Beyond the Veil

**Author's Note:**

> A big thanks to Cybrid for betaing this, as well as RedHorse and trashgoblinwizardparty for moral support!
> 
> Note: The italicized passage in the beginning is from Order of the Phoenix; Chapter 35, Beyond the Veil.

* * *

 

 _He was falling down steep stone step after steep stone step, bouncing on every tier until at last, with a crash that knocked all the breath out of his body, he landed flat on his back in the sunken pit where the stone archway stood on its dais. The whole room was ringing with the Death Eater's laughter: he looked up and saw the five who had been in the Brain Room descending towards him, while as many more emerged through other doorways and began leaping from bench to bench towards him. Harry got to his feet though his legs were trembling so badly they barely supported him: the prophecy was still miraculously unbroken in his left hand, his wand clutched tightly in his right. He backed away, looking around, trying to keep all the Death Eaters within his sight. The back of his legs hit something solid: he had reached the dais where the archway stood. He climbed backwards onto it._

_The Death Eaters all halted, gazing at him. Some were panting as hard as he was. One was bleeding badly; Dolohov, freed of the Body-Bind Curse, was leering, his wand pointing straight at Harry's face._

_'Potter, your race is run,' drawled Lucius Malfoy, pulling off his mask, 'now hand me the prophecy like a good boy. '_

Surrounded and outnumbered, Harry felt the panic rise in his chest. He took a few desperate steps backwards, until he was very nearly touching the veil in the archway. The Death Eaters seemed almost frozen in awe; none of them moved closer. Bellatrix licked her lips. 

“Go on, Potter” said Lucius, stretching out his palm, eyes flickering between Harry, the archway and the prophecy. 

There was no way out. Nothing else he could do. Harry glanced behind him. The veil was swaying gently, as though caught by an invisible breeze. He could still hear the faint whispering from behind its folds. He turned back to look at Lucius, who seemed to know what Harry was going to do almost before he himself had even realized _—_ he caught a brief glimpse of Lucius’s shocked expression, mouth opening as if to shout something _—_ before whirling around, still clutching the prophecy, and running straight through the veil.

 

* * *

 

_The living have no comprehension of what it means to be dead._

 

* * *

 

It was as if Harry had been blind his entire life and suddenly, after 15 years, had been granted vision. He didn’t have any words or reference for what he was currently experiencing. He was drowning in strange, towering shapes and swollen liquid-like sensations. Something about it felt immense, larger than the universe. Infinite, ancient, timeless. Like floating in the middle of a void. Like he was everything and nothing at the same time.

An eternity in the span of a second later, he thought he sensed movement _—_ or maybe he was seeing something? _—_ but he wasn’t sure _how;_ it didn’t feel like he even had a body to see or sense with. A calm peacefulness seemed to linger in this strange state, but somehow Harry felt restless, as though something was _wrong—_ or that _he_ was wrong to be there.

There was an odd tingling sensation in his mind _—_ consciousness? _—_ that caught his flickering attention and made him want to explore the source. It was ongoing, constant, and yet… changing, in its nature. Somehow it felt important. Tinged with a strange, vaguely familiar feeling. ... _Melancholy?_ Harry tried to concentrate on it.

_“—long here, you must go back, you can’t stay—”_

A voice! The prickling sensation wasn’t in his mind at all! It was _sound,_ the feeling of someone _whispering!_ Whispering words to _him_ …

And suddenly, as though his discovery of hearing and comprehending words had brought down a barrier in his mind, he could make out several voices—all of them whispering; urgent, desperate, not once stopping for breath.

_“—isn’t right, he isn’t done, no, no, he doesn’t—”_

_“—back, go back where you came from, go back—”_

_“—doesn’t belong here, can’t stay—”_

_“—Harry, Harry, Harry_ no _—”_

At the sound of his name he suddenly felt more aware, like he was slowly coming together.

“What’s happening?” he asked the void. It wasn’t anything like speaking _—_ there were no lips moving, no tongue forming the words, no sound passing through particles of air, yet his words had seemed to appear like a strange, hovering echo….

_“…Harry? Harry, go back, go back—“_

“Back _where?"_ Harry pushed. And something was happening, like whatever space he was floating in was contorting in pain. 

Strange glimpses and echoes of something that seemed oddly familiar to Harry were overtaking the peaceful state; a sharp sting in the crook of an arm, the faint scent of metal from a piece of golden jewelry, the crack of flames in a dying campfire, a flash of green, a spark of red and a palm reaching out as if to catch something... the sensation of something that fit _perfectly_ , like a hand in a glove… or a _wand_ between clasped fingers… The taste of triumph, of something endless that was finally over… A dark figure, lying still and unmoving in a grand, open space. And Harry felt as though something important had been stored inside him. Like a secret, like an _answer_. 

_“—not done, doesn’t belong here, it isn’t right—"_

“Then help me leave,” Harry replied. And suddenly the world was crumbling and turning in on itself and there was _something_ in the distance—and how strange it was, to discover a spatial dimension that contained _near_ and _far_ here—because Harry could see it now, a strange, dim light, in the shape of an archway. The sight of it made something prickle in the back of his mind.

_“Harry, Harry, you have to go—”_

The shape seemed to draw nearer, and something was moving, blurrily, inside it; figures that appeared to be running _—dancing?—_ and strange little lights that were rapidly appearing and disappearing, lighting up the silhouettes as they moved. Harry was mesmerized by the sight of it.

 _“Harry,_ go! _”_

The voice was getting louder, closer _—_ Harry thought he might have heard it before _—_ but the archway was almost right in front of him now, and he felt strangely _drawn_ to it, like something or someone was calling out to him from the other side. He could make out the moving shapes and blasts of light much more clearly now, although they seemed somewhat distant, like there was some layer or fabric between him and the other side. Right upon having this thought, Harry saw that there _was_ something in between, a thin barrier, like a veil… 

Harry reached out with an arm he didn’t know he had and the veil _moved_ , blowing up so that it was completely out of sight...

_“...Harry…”_

Harry stepped through.

 

* * *

 

_To be touched by death is to be chosen by life._

 

* * *

 

An eerie, unnatural silence, followed by a bone-chilling cold went through the room, as the veil flew upwards and Harry Potter _—_ alive, whole and unhurt _—_ stepped calmly through the archway. The prophecy was resting in one hand, his wand in the other. 

Where groups of dirty and bloodied witches and wizards had been fighting each other—as a desperate last act of justice for a dead boy with a no-longer significant future, or a cruel, gleeful celebration of victory for a man who wasn’t quite alive—all eyes were now drawn to the boy on the dais.

And as the veil gently fell to cover the stone arch and the room lit up in chaos once more, two figures _—_ one tall, with a wave of black, one smaller, with a flash of fiery red and a hint of green _—_ slowly disintegrated into the void beyond the veil.

 


End file.
